


Race For The Abandoned Planet

by Princewelcomematt (Vagab0nd)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Hot Wheels (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Car Racing, Multi, Slice of Life, Suspense, this is only loosely based on hotwheels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25411006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagab0nd/pseuds/Princewelcomematt
Summary: Humanity erupts into war, as they are expected to, and are abandoned by a large group of the people that are needed the most on the surface. After building a community in the ship they used to depart, hundreds of thousands of year later, the ones who finally return to Earth figure out the only way they can survive the abandoned planet is by exploiting themselves through televised racing on the tracks they discover there, built ages ago by the once mighty and mysterious business conglomerate Seiros Inc.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is simply the prologue. After the initial worldbuilding i'll actually begin to introduce the cast of characters, and the chapters will be much longer. Until then, please enjoy this snippit!

The Earth is swiftly failing, and the people are desperately in need of a new power source, having drained it of old-fashioned materials like coal and oil years ago. These people jump from wind and solar to water and sand while theories run rampant - fuzzy memories of stories and tales that speak about a time long gone, when a new and desperately needed source of energy was introduced to the world by a company named Sothis Inc. The company was known for supposedly harvesting energy from the cosmos, transforming it, warping it beyond recognition, and attempting to harness living power, only to finally let it run wild among the cities of the living. It was said to have entered and saved the lives of those who were cautious, rewarding the gentle and kind, while punishing those who let such strength get to their heads. The children of the world were told they could not handle the otherworldly responsibility, and only the virtuous could receive it's blessing. But these are only stories. Only rumors spread by dreamers and idealists.

Of course, it is only a rumour if you listen to those who don't want you to seek the real truth.

The truth is that humanity had already been wiped out, once. Destroyed by its own impotence, by itself, overridden with a hunger for power as societies went to war with each other over trivial issues that their ancestors hadn't realised should be solved, lest they be developed into something much worse. The wars raged until they had gone so long that children were raised to adulthood knowing nothing but battle and hardship. Then came the last door to close - a group of the most intelligent and most talented abandoned their kind when they needed them most, the ones they had been attempting to help, to treat plague and famine, to build homes and stable leadership, to maintain peace and order, and left on a vessel no one since has been able to describe. 

They left a message of warning - next time, you should listen.

They took with them all of the gifts they had been denied to give, and soon after, without them, the planet perished. There were no humans left. The only memory of them became simple tales and warnings that the divine power bestowed upon those that were living could not be maintained by anyone on the surface, and the stories ended with unending praise for their few survivors upon The Vessel.

Hundreds of thousands of years later, a group of the survivors decided they had experienced enough of the strict government ordinance that had been swiftly put in place in the sky, abandoning The Vessel and determined to scrape the remnants of any energy left of the Earth and build a society again. However, they realised very quickly that they had no knowledge or even hints to where they might begin to find it. It was overgrown and overwhelming, foreign land that no one had touched in generations upon generations. The weather was unpredictable, and the monsters that roamed shadows were unlike anyone could describe, much less be prepared to fight. Running out of resources from The Vessel quickly, those who abandoned tried to return, but were refused. They had made their decision, announced their lack of faith, and fell. That was to be their future. They were condemned to the Forgotten Planet.

Three hundred years later, the search and the struggle continue for power, having made but slight progress. Rhea, a woman from The Vessel, preserved by incremental cryo-sleep, has given the new colony insight and resources she brought with her in order to aid the people in their search. She, along with one other, a man named Seteth, work long and hard together to build a system of advanced technology that can track surges of great power, coming from what they hypothesise are The Relics, the name they have given to concentrated and shapeless containers of raw energy used to power government counties leading the world in it's dying moments. 

Finally, once a singular power source is found glowing bright on the screen Rhea has built, a group of explorers uses Seteth's guidance to enter a portal into what they believe is the Energy Field, sent to recover one of the power sources. What they find there is incredibly strange and unbelievably unheard of, but no one will ever, forget the descriptions of that day, and such words would be repeated among The Vessel for years to come.

The environment is filled with what appears to be long spreads of varied roads, made up of many different materials, designs and colors. They wind around the area stretching hundreds of miles, passing through treacherous environments, often playfully creative and maddeningly, yet amusingly difficult to traverse.

It becomes very clear after only a day of research that the area surrounding the Relics... Are racetracks.

This changes everything. Those in the Vessel are alerted to something they had never thought possible - cars, and by extension racing, although something read about in history books and told to children in fantastical woven tales of forgotten society, were obsolete. There was no need for vehicles in the settlement that lived in the sky, but here came a chance to watch, to gander, to be amused by the l obviously faithless and lesser society that lived upon the Forgotten Planet. Everyone in The Vessel now called for competition and entertainment, offering unheard amounts of resources and materials to those willing to be watched, and soon the two societies reached a mutual agreement - The Abandoned would race, and The Vessel would cheer.

Four years later, after long and formal preparation, the races are drafted according to who has the most support from The Vessel. Three captains for three full teams, each accompanied by a full pit crew, and one supervisor, chosen by Rhea and Seteth themselves. All young, spry and attractive. All marketable, in one way or another.

Ahead, unknown horrors lie in wait, twisting among the living dead planet, along with untold riches from the society most people on Earth have only heard of.

The lights flash. A flag descends.  
On your mark.  
Get set.  
Race.


	2. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you've lived a long life but remember nothing of it, every time you wake up is a new birth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for a warm reception to the prologue. I really want to bring you into this world and immerse you in it as completely as I am in my dreams. Hehe, this chapter introduces our main character. Finally, the crowd cries!
> 
> I will be adding images as I collect them through either commissions or creating them myself. 💜

The machine hummed with a comfortable, cool tone as it continued its job without fail through the years. If one had given it sentience, they would find an aged soul, accustomed to repetition, proud of its work and continued loyalty to the being it held. As it was, it was simply a machine, and the being inside of it had been asleep for so long that one could argue that sentience was something at this point you needed to be worried about not for the machine, but the girl inside of it.

The first thing she realised when she opened her eyes was how warm it was, suddenly. It felt like stepping out of an air conditioned room right into one heated by a fireplace, the heat creeping over every inch of her skin slowly, as if spread with a butter knife, leaving the underside of her skin still cool. She realised the temperature before any visual stimulants because there was nothing to actually see. It was darkness without the absence of light. She simply couldn't see anything.

Rather than panic, she simply laid there. Breathing. Feeling the wave of heat slowly wash over every inch of her, spilled paint on a blank canvas.

Then there was a sound, although completely unplaceable. It moved inside her head, pitchless, and flew over her mind, trying to find a place to land. This happened several times until the shapes took meaning and began its journey of significance.

"But is she truly awake? Her eyes are open, and she breathes, but is she here?" Questioned a being that sang beautifully, the most enchanting melody she'd ever heard. Her head ached to experience it again, and the top of her body shifted towards it.

"She turned her head, she turned her head! Oh, what a revelation!" Trilled a different song, higher and younger, and there was a pressure, somewhere, suddenly. "A cause for celebration, surely!" 

She wasn't sure this was cause for celebration, although it was a relief to grasp the concept of happiness to further deconstruct language. The next sound she heard was low, rolling gravel on a harder surface.

"Be careful to touch, Flayn." It chided gently, but there was a mirroring pressure on the opposite side now. 

They were touching her. Ever so gently, two people were holding her hands.

"You did well, Jeralt."

"Of course I did. There was no other alternative."

The first color she saw was green. Then, the soft peach of skin. After those two colors it was too much to handle, millions of hues and hundreds of textures. She shut her eyes. If she had not been lying down, she would have fallen.

"Oh, my darling..." Said the first sound, the first voice that she'd heard previously. A woman. "Sweet girl, I am so happy to see you awake. Please do not enter this world swiftly, I know you ache to understand, but it is better to be gentle."

It felt like she melted into the words of this song, seeping into the surface of where she lay and among the floorboards, over and under the walls, and inside of a deep slumber once again. 

* * *

_ Don't stay asleep too long, you idiot! They need you out there!! _

Once she woke up a second time, it did not feel like the first time had been real. Her eyes were functioning and sharp, darting about the room and landing on every detail they could take in piece by piece, her understanding low not because she did not grasp the concept of sight but simply unable to recognize what the contraptions were, made up of silver chrome and shining metal. She was hooked up with a bag of fluid to her wrist,  _ a part of her body, _ and although she had just heard a voice, she was alone in the room.

It took a massive amount of effort to sit up. Her muscles strained, unfamiliar but aching to learn as fast as possible. Every inch of her skin tingled. Sensation, feeling, and touch started affecting her everywhere it could and it was again overwhelming, but she continued to push. Her feet had nearly supported her full weight, and she was tugging at the needle in her wrist uncomfortably when a small girl came into the room.

"Rhea! Father! Oh please, do come quick!" the girl shouted, making the other one wince as her ears fed the information forcefully back into her brain. She was followed quickly by two other people. One was tall, his toned muscles defined through a thick white lab coat. He was built like a runner, but he had deft fingers and a deeply concentrated expression on his face, which was framed by hair that fell almost to his shoulders and a similar short stubble on his chin. He looked as if he was about to intercept information that he was not ready for.

The other person who came in was possibly the most beautiful woman that she upon the medical table would ever lay eyes upon in her life. Every inch of her was refined with a sort of noble air, soft edges and gentle movements. She could have been swimming above ground, so gently did she move among the living. Her lab coat was smaller, cut to her slim frame. Her hair was down her back, and she wore a simple gold band around her head, accenting her dark eyelashes.

All of them had green hair.

The young one beamed, stepping over to touch her hand. This was the second time the girl had done this. 

"Flayn, you must be careful." The man spoke as if he was tired of repeating this, but he held his hands clasped in front of himself, as if holding back from following her example like he had before.

The woman raised her own hand slowly, moving again as though she was within a pool of water, ribbons threading through her fingers, settling upon her cheek in a feather-light touch.

"Byleth."

"Yes?"

Oh. Byleth is my name, she thought. Byleth had always been her name. Of course. How could she forget? Or did she not forget, and instead neglect to address it until it was appropriate?

The woman gave a tiny gasp, her beautiful pale green eyes welling up with sweet tears. Byleth suddenly ached. She didn't want that, never would, never had. To see her cry was to break your own heart with one hand. 

"Don't cry," Byleth requested softly, her head shaking slowly, only making an inch of movement. 

"Oh, but I must, for I don't know what else to feel but sweet relief." The woman said, her lips spreading in a sweet smile. "You have been asleep for so, so very long." 

Asleep? It hadn't felt like slumber. This felt like… being born. 

"Cryo-sleep." Said the man, fingering his sleeve, obviously still aching to make contact. He was visibly more emotionally reserved, but not without a great amount of effort. He had wrinkles in the middle of his forehead, a man of never-ending concern, one could see clearly. "You have been frozen in time for four hundred and eighty years." 

This didn't seem like it could be a conceivable number, so Byleth simply didn't entertain it as a matter for consideration and passed it by like a rock on a dirt path.

"Do you remember me?" The girl holding her hand asked. Her eyes were huge, and they held a well-maintained innocence to them. "Flayn?"

"No." Byleth said simply. The girl looked crushed. Her hand squeezed.

"That's alright, I remember you." Flayn said thickly, chewing through tough words. 

"I am Seteth," Said the man, tipping his head forward. "This is Rhea."

The woman also tipped her head, so Byleth followed suit and did the same. 

"Rhea is the President of the Color Guard," Seteth added, as if that made any sense to Byleth whatsoever. "I am the vice president."

"Seteth is my father." Flayn added helpfully, although Byleth had been able to piece that together using context clues. She could pick up several other facts from the three standing around her - the most prominent that they had hoped she'd remember them, and that they were devastated that she didn't, but they loved her all the same.

It was odd being so deeply cherished when you felt absolutely nothing in return.

"What do you remember?" Rhea asked, trying and failing to keep the eagerness out of her voice. 

"My name." Byleth responded. She wished that she didn't have to speak anymore immediately afterwards. There was no end to how disappointing she could be, it seemed - and she literally had not done a single thing.

"Well..." Seteth said after an empty moment, devoid of new information and therefore virtually useless to Byleth. 

"You're on the Abandoned Planet, formally known as Earth. After a long period of desertion whereupon humanity left the planet for the sky, we," he gestured to the three of them, "and you," he gestured to Byleth, "were born upon a ship we called The Vessel. After a long time living there among The Freed, you and us and many others in the same mindset… Came back to Earth."

Byleth blinked at him. "What mindset?"

Seteth opened his mouth, but it was Rhea who answered.

"We belong to Mother Earth, and she beckoned us back. We felt a pull here, to the surface." She explained, the smile on her face seemingly a permanent fixture as she looked upon Byleth, soaking up her presence like sugar-water to a sponge. "You did too at one point, but you were kept in cryo-sleep longer than we were. We go in weekly, and are out a few hours once every seven days. You have been in… utterly and completely for all the years we have been on Earth. It makes sense that you remember nothing, although I wish it weren't the case."

"Can you walk? How is your muscle definition?" Seteth asked, taking her arm in his strong fingers and peeling back the tape to free her arm from it's fluids, the needle invisibly petite.

Byleth blinked, because she couldn't possibly know the answer, so there was no reason to use any words to explain it. Seteth knew this, and after he had finished his project concerning the needle, he drew a wheelchair from the corner of the room. "We will soon create a training regimen for you to rebuild your bodily functions." He said, businesslike with strong undertones of a man who was used to being completely in control. "Until then, please sit."

Sit she did, the soft fabric of the clothes she wore billowing onto the chair, spilling over her arms and onto hard textured plastic. She saw no other option than to follow orders, for there was nothing to her yet that she could identify. It was odd that her thirst for knowledge was not overtaking every part of her, she observed idly. But perhaps being anxious about the possibilities would be useless. She'd be told everything in time, would she not? To be concerned at the rate of which she was wouldn't serve a purpose. There was no danger. She settled with her excitement and her hunger like a full throb in the back of her head that refused to press her and did not mind waiting for a meal.

"May I push her, Father?" Flayn requested eagerly, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her healthy green curls following suit. 

"You may." Seteth allowed, gesturing. 

"We'll take you outside." Rhea explained, eyes twinkling. 

Outside was a ways away, Byleth discovered eventually, after long turn after long turn tread a path through the halls of her hospital, which although vast, didn't seem to be incredibly busy at this time. She wondered where other patients were kept, and if perhaps she would be permitted to see them. More people would mean more information, it seemed natural to assume. Although she hadn't asked enough questions of her three caretakers to know if they'd withhold information from her. 

"Jeralt," She says simply, like a test. "Who is that?"

Flayn gasps gently with excitement, and Seteth smiles faintly. "You heard him?"

"Only today." Then again, Byleth didn't know if  _ today _ was a correct measurement of time. "The first time I woke up."

"Jeralt is your guardian, he's a mechanic and an expert in cryo-tech." Rhea said, reaching into the satchel she carried at her side to tap at something inside of it. "He is the person, most recently, that has been watching over you."

"Like a father!" Flayn supplies brightly, excited.

Byleth purses her lips. She wishes that word also made her excited. 

"He should be meeting us at the doors of the hospital to take you to where the two of you will be staying for the time being." Rhea explains, but only somewhat. If anything, it only brought on more questions. 

"Why can't I stay here too?" Byleth asked. To meet the other patients, she hoped. 

"A hospital is no place to live out your days." Rhea responded, which seemed reasonable enough, but was still strange. Byleth was about to ask where the three of them lived, and where the other people were that were like her when they turned a sharp corner to face a huge glass door, allowing the four of them to gaze out across what should be assumed was the hospital's parking lot. 

(If this image does not load, simply open it into a new tab) 

It was… Alive, sparse trees and moss growing between every crack of infrastructure Byleth could see. Unlike the inside of the hospital, which was flawless, white and pristine, the outside was breathing and thriving, dew clinging to the leaves it had been blessed to make contact with.

There was a man outside the glass doors. He had been waiting for her for a very long time.

"We can't spend too much time with you, as I want you to be as acclimated to the outside world as you can be as fast as you can be." Rhea explained. Byleth felt a twitch of her brow at this - she wanted the inside explained first by the ones who woke her in it before anything. Apparently this was not how things were going to go, so she decided it was useless to be occupied with such thoughts. Better to take more steps down her path.

The glass door slid open with a sigh, and the man gave a lopsided grin. "Hey kid."

"Jeralt." Byleth said. She knew it was him. It couldn't have been anyone else. 

"Tell her what you know." Seteth said, and Flayn let go of her wheelchair with some degree of difficulty, looking as if she'd rather hold on longer. 

"That ain't much." Jeralt said with a huff, taking the chair in strong, rough hands. "But I'll do my best." 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments get this work to rise so one can skim off the cream!! More reads means faster updates. 💜

**Author's Note:**

> I really appreciate you being here.


End file.
